Thames Freeport - Britain's Trading Future

X X X X X X X [ 66 ] U N I V E R S I T Y O F P LY MO U T H The University currently operates three Innovation Centres in Cornwall with a total of 140 high growth enterprises creating high quality jobs in a region typified by low wages and low productivity. In the 2019/20 financial year, businesses in the centres created 169 new FTE jobs and generated £6.84 million in additional business turnover. This is complemented by the University’s leadership of Acceleration through Innovation, a £3.4 million project providing high value and intensive innovation support to Cornish SMEs. The University has always taken its role seriously in supporting the creation and growth of the micro- enterprises and SMEs. To that end it also operates a Formation Zone, a nationally recognised incubator model providing an open and interactive environment for undergraduate, graduate and external entrepreneurs to test their business ideas. In the past year this has supported the creation of 61 new student start-ups, with a further 51 being sustained, and this will be replicated as part of the Thames Freeport. The University has more than four decades of experience in Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), having worked with organisations of all sizes — and across sectors including the maritime and port industries — to inspire innovation and achieve sustained business growth. Many of these partnerships have been supported by UK Government funding and, with several of the freeport pillars — such as clean logistics — aligning with areas where the University’s reputation is truly global, there is the potential for such initiatives and funding to be explored further, both in the short and long term. The freeport’s significant focus on the environment and marine conservation will enable the University to extend opportunities to deploy its world-leading expertise in both areas, partnering with others in this field as it does at its Brixham Laboratory, for example. Taking the other partners’ interest into consideration, there is also the potential to look into emerging areas such as autonomous technology, big data, artificial intelligence and sustainable engineering. A focus on technology integration is key to the University’s work, and aligns with freeport benefits when components come together from, and are exported, overseas. One example is floating wind energy. Turbines come from Scandinavia and platforms from Portugal, and yet the UK leads on their integration into the floating wind platform that is then deployed over 20 miles offshore, outside the UK. The University leads the Supergen ORE Hub, an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council- funded consortium of ten UK universities that brings together academic and industrial expertise from across the Offshore Renewable Energy sector, sharing fundamental knowledge and resources for interdisciplinary research that takes a whole systems approach. The Hub’s vision is to provide research leadership to connect academia, industry, policy and public stakeholders, inspiring innovation and maximising societal value in offshore wind, wave and tidal energy. Maritime and shipping research and Innovation Led by the Maritime and Logistics, Business and Policy Group, the University aims to promote excellent research into business and policy issues in maritime business and logistics, with the potential to be exploited to benefit the Thames Freeport and each of its individual partners. The group includes academics in fields such as international shipping, The freeport’s significant focus on the environment and marine conservation will enable the University to extend opportunities to deploy its world-leading expertise in both areas University of Plymouth students on a study trip to develop an authentic and hands-on understanding of ship loading processes